It will come as no surprise at all to learn first that I heard a version of that as a child (!), and secondly, that it was in the form of a "Scotsman, Englishman and Irishman" joke. Guess who had the line attributed above to the lad from Kerry? An alternative way, avoiding the slight awkwardness of having that necessary choice, involves the Third Stooge, as it were, saying, "I'm not having anything to do wi' thon yoke, it's not working...".

Not really a joke, but connected with failures in the supposedly foolproof Guillotine, is Lord Byron's account of a multiple execution in France, obviously c. 1802 or after 1815. There must have been some irregularity in the mechanism, or the first prisoner struggled, but whatever the cause the blade did not cut through the neck, but right into the skull, obviously sticking half-way through. This produced quite an effect on the crowd and on the other prisoners, not to mention the skull. Byron wrote that he could barely bring himself to watch proceedings any further; "I do confess that the Opera Glasses fairly quivered in my hand".